I read an earlier thread regarding looking for 'wall street' jobs and thought I would chronicle my own job search. Hopefully it will give some people ideas or at least something to laugh at.... Start out with my background, I'm 25, graduated from Johns Hopkins w/ an engineering degree. Spent 3 years in engineering for a Fortune 500 manufacturing company that really wanted to be a sales/marketing company and looked at operations as a 'necessary evil'. Decided to leave, take my GMATS and apply to jobs on 'the Street', see what worked out better. GMATS = 640 which was 80th percentile. OK but not good enough, which means back to the books and get my resume out. First thing I did was hire a pro to write my resume, tailored to trading positions.
The guy was a little expensive but he was from Oneonta (I spent about a 1.5 years there) so we had a lot in common. Plus his brother was FI trader and was in the process of starting his own Bond Boutique firm... End result, the resume was better but I wasn't blown away or anything-and his bro never led to anything. Covered the usual suspect online job boards with my resume. I also accessed MonsterTrak, a service through JHU, and sent them all resumes too. One of the posting was really interesting, no website, but I used the yellow pages and got their phone number. Couple days later I had an interview. It was first round for a MM on the AMEX, mostly ETF's and some SP arb. It was with one guy, who couldn't be that much older then me. He hardly looked at my resume, just asked once again if I really went to Johns Hopkins, then went into math, computation, estimation questions. I figure I got about half of them wrong or poorly answered. Well I was wrong, got a call back next week to meet the rest of the guys on the floor of the AMEX.
Really nice guys, no tough questions, just an opportunity to ask some questions. Then I had to meet the firm partner in White Plains. All this time I was commuting from DC to NYC on the Chinatown bus. Woke up really early in the morning drove to White Plains and totally blew the interview. It was extremely embarrasing, the quesitons weren't even that hard-just nerves got to me. I haven't heard from them since.
In the meantime I met with a recruiter who told me about some positions at Goldman Sachs-temp jobs in Credit Risk Management and Equity Research. Both temp to perm positions. Nothing happened with CRM but I did get an interview with Equity Research. Now I really don't want to do Research but I can't really afford to be too picky. Goldman would like nice on the resume, its a temp position so I'm not locked into anything, and plus I was hoping to learn about some of the valuation techniques of major IB's and their models. Went to the interview, they went through my resume with a fine tooth combed. No logic/math questions. They were very stone faced throughout the interview and I got a funny feeling from them-even though nothing 'bad' happened. The only thing was I asked a question regarding the structure of their department, I got an incredously look and 'Didn't you read our website?' I HAD gone through their website but focused on their latest earnings report and their 'business principles'. Oh well. Haven't heard back yet!
Next got on Bloomberg and posted my resume, took down about 20 posting and sent them my resume. Got a call Friday afternoon from a recruiter, wanted me to go straight for an interview with HSBC FI trading. She said she'll get back to me with a confirmation. Haven't heard from her yet! Seems like a theme, haha!
Again off Bloomberg I got a call and an interview on Friday. It's for a sales trading position but I'm afraid its not institutional sales, I just hope its not PCS or something and I have to cold call random people. I'm probably not down for that. There's hope Goldman comes through, I called the recruiting agency and they told me it usually takes them awhile to make a decision (do I smell BS?) That's about the recap, I'll post as developments continue and hopefully I'll have a job before my savings run out!!! BTW, big shout out to DynamicReplic8r and Jimmy for their advice and help. Real good guys!
Pro's writing resumes? Are you on about prostitutes writing resumes for would be traders? Has anybody ever heard of the saying,..."It's not what you know, but, who you know"? Competition is so fierce for 'jobs' on the market. Open your own account, if a person is as good as they think they are....the skies the limit. If you are a crap trader, you'll end up back at square one in the end. Get a loan or remortgage. Why not? You're only ever as good as you 'think' or 'pretend' to be.
Yeah, this journal is a fun read. I like the detail...looking forward to seeing how this guys job hunt turns out.